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2G My 95' Talon AWD clutch is heavy

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TheDude236

Proven Member
272
193
Mar 15, 2021
Kingston Springs, Tennessee
Finally got my 95' Talon today and boy is it fun! Unfortunately, something is up with the clutch.
What happens is this: The clutch pushes down super hard, and releases waaaaay to close to the floor when shifting, like, almost instantly when you start to release the clutch, it shifts into gear. My dad killed the car the first time he shifted, and instantly said it was probably the master/slave cylinder, but from what I have been reading its some kind of fork near the transmission. I'm ultra confused and just need a master's help on this one. Thanks guys!
 
This picture clearly shows the position of the clutch fork is incorrect & not past center towards the driver's side.
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This is normal when using a resurfaced flywheel & not shimming the pivot ball to compensated for the changes in the geometry caused by the the flywheel friction surface no longer being at the proper physical location. This restricts the range of motion & reduces the distance the clutch pressure plate can move for disengagement.
My recommendation is remove the transmission and shim the pivot ball by adding washers. If you know how much was removed from the flywheel when resurfaces, the washer thickness will be equal the amount of removed material, otherwise it is trial & error. This picture shows the fork position you would be targeting for.
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You must partially install the transmission with a couple bolts into the bell housing & push the clutch fork towards the passenger side bottoming the TOB against the pressure plate diaphragm spring finger to see where it stops. If the clutch fork position is not right, the transmission comes back out & you either add more washers if it is still not past center or remove washers if the fork has moved to far towards the driver's side. To far will cause the fork to contact the backside of the pressure plate when disengaged & it will grind. I would guess you need to shim the pivot ball about .060".
I would measure the flywheel step height while you have the transmission out too.
Some have shimmed the pivot ball without pulling the tranny but I would not recommend trying to do this if you are not familiar with what the inside of the bell housing & clutch looks like on these cars.
From all the back and forth posts in this thread it appears to me that reading & watching videos are somewhat challenging but is an unavoidable necessary evil. You have to pay to play.
More information is available at this link RRE's DSM Flywheel and Clutch Info.
 
Thank you. I think this is exactly where we are. Whoever resurfaced the flywheel is likely unfamiliar with DSM's and the pivot ball wasn't shimmed appropriately. I guess it held up for a year or two, but has now worn to the point where the pivot isn't providing enough leverage.
 
@TSIdad @TheDude236
The most possible things have already been mentioned earlier by everyone. So I just try to share my experience with a similar case I had. Maybe this is not your case but still one of possibilities.
On my 1g, the pedal had been always heavy since I had had a very stiff pressure plate always (Act 2900). So the heavy pedal wasn't an issue for me, but the engage point was very close to the floor. And it didn't matter how I adjusted, with new cylinders, with proper step height, with/without shim or how may times I bled. I couldn't make the engage point farther from the floor.
I could drive the car without any issues, but it was difficult to shift at high RPM like at 7000+RPM. And finally found a little bit of black-ish goo in the slave cylinder, maybe rust/dirt or some piece of rubber from old slave cylinder's piston. And that was coming out from the old stock line, too. And it was stuck on the valve in the slave cylinder's inlet. And it looked the valve (the part that is a tiny plate with a pinhole in the inlet of slave cylinder) was clogged a little bit. So I guessed the goo was disturbing the slave cylinder's proper function, and then I flushed the line with brake cleaner and compressed air but couldn't clean up perfect. Finally, I removed the valve from the slave cylinder and replaced the clutch line from master to slave with a -SS braided line.
That made the engagement a bit more harsh, but that made the engage point farther from the floor.
 
Last edited:
My son and I were just talking about this. The only thing we haven't done is bypass the accumulator. I'd like to try that next. Where did you purchase the SS braided line?
 
This is the whole line. If he was just wanting to eliminate the accumulator, the line only needs to go from the slave to the connector next to the trans mount.

 
This is the whole line. If he was just wanting to eliminate the accumulator, the line only needs to go from the slave to the connector next to the trans mount.

Please read my post above. I am talking about the line from master to slave cylinder.
 
This picture clearly shows the position of the clutch fork is incorrect & not past center towards the driver's side.

I don't think that's a valid picture anymore though, because it was taken when they had the master rod adjusted too far out of the clevis. It is from post #28 which says "I cannot push in the slave by hand".
With their current adjustment the fork position is like this, shot from the video in post 42:

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Still the fork is left of center a little bit, just not as much as shown in post 28.
So you are probably right that a shim under the pivot ball would be an improvement.

@TSIdad @TheDude236
Finally, I removed the valve from the slave cylinder and replaced the clutch line from master to slave with a -SS braided line.
That made the engagement a bit more harsh, but that made the engage point farther from the floor.

Yeah! Doing the 2g equivalent of this should be really worth a try.

Also, don't forget to see if you can get more "A" by adjusting as shown in the FSM.
 
I don't think that's a valid picture anymore though, because it was taken when they had the master rod adjusted too far out of the clevis. It is from post #28 which says "I cannot push in the slave by hand".
With their current adjustment the fork position is like this, shot from the video in post 42:

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Still the fork is left of center a little bit, just not as much as shown in post 28.
So you are probably right that a shim under the pivot ball would be an improvement.



Yeah! Doing the 2g equivalent of this should be really worth a try.

Also, don't forget to see if you can get more "A" by adjusting as shown in the FSM.
I concur. That other picture is no longer relevant but the newer pic still shows fork a little too far.

Here is another line to replace just the accumulator.
 
Another item occurred to me. Check all the bolts to the transmission bolted to block. Make sure they are tight. There is one oddball bolt also that goes through the block but doesn't bolt to it. It goes through from the backside and bolts into the trans. It's above the transfer case by the drivers axle. This one is very important.

Please review my post on clutches. Shimming the pivot ball is not something the cars ever had stock. After all this discussion I'm guessing you have several problems and you are methodically elimating each one. You are definitely on the right track.
 
Thanks again everyone. We will bypass the accumulator as a final effort to eliminate any issues with the hydraulics. Then, a deeper dive into the clutch. I have the receipt from the clutch replacement and flywheel resurfacing that was done two owners, and two years ago. I will try to call that shop and ask if they remember what they did. By the looks of the receipt, I’m not only guessing they won’t remember, but they had no idea how to ‘step surface’ the flywheel.
 
Hey everyone, I just wanted to add an update to the this thread.
The car was brought to me and I spent a couple of days working on it. During the first test drive, I noticed that the clutch engagement was very low to the floor and quite abrupt. I also noticed that all gears engaged smoothly, with the exception of second gear, which would grind at every shift.
Before pulling the transmission, I saw that with the slave installed, the clutch fork sat about 75% to the passenger side. When draining the fluid, only about 1 qt came out. After removing the trans, I found a no-name 6-puck clutch. Then pivot ball was noticibly worn (could catch a fingernail), and the flywheel had been resurfaced with a step height of .607". I determined that the combination of these is what was causing the low, abrupt clutch engagement.
I reassembled using a replacement flywheel from RockAuto (stepped at .611" right out of the box), OEM fork and pivot, and a South Bend stage 1 clutch.
After assembly the clutch engages smoothly and predictibly, although there is still a grind when shifting to 2nd. I suspect the lack of fluid was to blame for a failed synchro.
 
Well! This thread has been dead long enough, it's time I update it! I got a bunch of parts (all of which you can see in the picture), and drove the car to a guy near me to fix it.
This includes a southbend stage 1 clutch, new clutch fork, pivot ball, and everything in the picture. The water pump, seals, and belts/rollers were all replaced with quality OEM parts, which brings me to the next part here.
The parts in the car were completely Chinese and Unbranded/non OEM parts. This explained the issue entirely.

Before pulling the transmission, I saw that with the slave installed, the clutch fork sat about 75% to the passenger side. When draining the fluid, only about 1 qt came out. After removing the trans, I found a no-name 6-puck clutch. Then pivot ball was noticibly worn (could catch a fingernail), and the flywheel had been resurfaced with a step height of .607". I determined that the combination of these is what was causing the low, abrupt clutch engagement.
I reassembled using a replacement flywheel from RockAuto (stepped at .611" right out of the box), OEM fork and pivot, and a South Bend stage 1 clutch.
After assembly the clutch engages smoothly and predictibly, although there is still a grind when shifting to 2nd. I suspect the lack of fluid was to blame for a failed synchro.
For more explanation, this is exactly what happened to us. I mean, down to each and every letter. 1 quart of fluid? check. failed 2nd gear synchro? check. no-name 6 puck? check. badly surfaced flywheel? you know it!

After the clutch-job, everything feels great again! Aside from the 2nd gear synchro, but that's a story for a different thread.
Also, check out the other changes to my Talon on my car's vehicle profile, I'll link it here: https://www.dsmtuners.com/dsm-profiles/1995-eagle-talon-tsi.15586/

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It's good to know there actually were some things seriously wrong inside the bell housing.
Pretty nice that you have somebody nearby who is good for working on this car. That's not always the case!
Thanks for the good pic of the new parts. I see the disc says EXEDY which should be good - they are one of the best aftermarket clutch makers. New tensioner for the timing belt too. Good!
 
Yes, IHeartMyHonda (above) did an awesome job. He even went above and beyond to clean up a few other loose ends, and showed us how to make some additional adjustments. Not sure any of us are up for rebuilding the transmission, however, if anyone has a good line of sight on a replacement AWD tranny we are in the market.
 
Of you haven't already figured it out you will need a trans from 95-96. If you find a 97 to 99 you can use it but you must either use a 97 to 99 transfer case or take apart the trans and change the final drive ratio. 90 to 94 trans will not work as the front and rear mounts are on the motor on a 1g vs on the trans on a 2g.
 
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